


Restoring the Balance

by vanillafluffy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Equilibrium (2002)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Equilibrium fusion, Gen, No guns or swords, Throw canon in a blender and hit 'puree'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 08:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10715418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: I got a prompt in the category "dystopias" requesting an Equilibrium AU. And because I only have a one-track mind, I threw the MCU in there and scrambled it. I haven't seen "Equilibrium" in about ten years, but as I recall, they fight with guns and swords. I went with unarmed combat, because hey, remember that elevator fight inThe Winter Soldier? Good stuff.





	Restoring the Balance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nagi_schwarz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/gifts), [Kukkurkurat (Kerttu)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Kukkurkurat+%28Kerttu%29).



> Dedicated to Nagi_Schwarz, who prompted me, and to Kerttu, who first introduced me to _Equilibrium_ a million years ago.

Deep within the tunnels beneath the City, the surviving metropolis keeping human civilization alive after the Third World War, a band of conspirators meets….

“We can topple the Father, Cleric Rogers, but we need your help. ” The leader of the Resistance is a man named Banner. His brown curls, dusted with grey, suggest he is old enough to remember the world before the War, before the rise of the Fathers and the discipline of emotionally-nullifying Prozium. 

“My sources tell me that you’re the only Cleric able enough to take on his bodyguard, a cyborg fighter.” His sources have reported other things as well, but for now, simply winning the City’s most-decorated enforcer to their side is a tremendous victory.

Steve Rogers looks away from the man’s keen gaze to look again at the others in the underground chamber. Most of them are very young: the Maximoff twins are scarcely eighteen--Wanda is awkward, but determined; her brother…there’s something vaguely familiar about Pietro. Natasha carries herself like a dancer. She and her partner Clint are a few years older than the twins. There’s a dark-skinned man whom Steve hasn’t been introduced to, somewhat younger than he is. Peggy, who brought Steve here, is his own age, but it’s not much to bring down a regime.

“We have other allies,” Banner says, astutely deducing Steve’s hesitation. “While you’re taking down Father, we’ll be destroying the Prozium factories.”

“Destroying the factories?” Steve snorts. After just a few days without emotion-suppressing Prozium, thinking and feeling are mingled, and right now, cold logic and laughable skepticism have merged. “Stark isn’t going to like that.”

“You forget that the Stark in charge isn’t the old man anymore. Stark the Younger has never taken a dose of Prozium in his pampered and sheltered life. He’s no problem. While we’re on the subject, I’d like to point out that with Stark’s father _and_ his former guardian, Obediah Stane, dead, that only one of the original Fathers is still alive--and he isn’t inclined to fill the vacancies. Alexander Pierce is the last of the Fathers; kill him and destroy the factories, and we can be human again. Hopefully, wiser than we were before.”

“What’s to stop Stark taking over?” Steve Rogers is stubborn. If he’s going to stick his neck out, he wants to be sure it won’t be in vain. 

“My sources say that Tony Stark seldom enters the factories, leaving production to his managers. He prefers to enjoy a sybaritic lifestyle, consuming the best fruits from the greenhouses and reveling in a collection of contraband EC-10 material the likes of which even you have never seen.”

Confiscating contraband with Emotional Content is no small part of a Cleric’s duty. That someone so high in the regime is _taking pleasure_ in such things…Steve feels a lingering disproval, but clarifying something else is a higher priority.

“Your sources…I’m awfully curious, Banner--most os the ‘revolutionaries’ I’ve seen are practically children, and yet, you say you have sources close to Stark, of all people? It’s common knowledge that he’s a virtual recluse--who’s your source?”

“That would be me,” says a soft voice, and Steve turns. 

She’d approached so quietly that he hadn’t heard her, although his senses are keen. He recognizes her as Stark’s wife-assistant, still wearing the immaculately tailored suit appropriate for her rank, certainly not looking like a Sense Offender.

“Tony Stark is an easy-going man with neither the ability nor the desire to rule anyone. After his father’s death, Obediah let him do whatever he pleased; he had no desire for Tony to grow up hungry for the power _he_ was wielding.” Citizen Potts speaks fondly. She seems almost amused by Stark’s shortcomings.

“The bottom line,” Steve points out, “is, if we take down Pierce, who or what do we replace him with? It’s one thing to say we’re going to free the people, but to have thousands of citizens who have never known another way of living to suddenly be presented with unlimited feelings, not to mention choices? As someone who’s just been through that, I can tell you: It’s scary.”

“We install an interrim council,” Banner speaks calmly. “People who understand how things work and can guide the workings of government until our citizens are able to decide who and what they want. I can tell you, three of them are in this room right now. No--” He smiles self-depricatingly. “Not me.”

It’s easy enough to guess Citizen Potts. He looks toward the dark-skinned man, who grins and says, “Don’t look at me; I’m a medic, I’m going to have enough to do.”

“Gee, Sam,” says the Maximoff boy, “You’ve got a vote of confidence. How sweet!”

Steve finally recalls where he knows the youth from. “You were in training to be a Cleric,” he says. “What happened?”

“I didn’t pass my mid-levels. On purpose,” Pietro adds, “because Clerics are bullies, and that’s not the kind of person I want to be.”

“Proudest day of my life,” booms the voice of the man who has been the Master of Clerics’ Training almost since the program was founded. “I could have sentenced him to mind-wipe, or even termination, but instead, I sent him down here to Banner. It’s good to see _you_ here, Cleric Rogers.”

Granted, Master Fury is the highest ranking Cleric, despite the loss of an eye to a pupil who bested him as a humble mid-level…he has an uncanny ability to move stealthily. Steve is mortified to be taken by surprise a second time. Fury saves him from the temporary awkwardness by saying, “Let’s leave these intrepid conspirators to their plotting, Rogers, and let me brief you on what you’ll be up against.”

Clearly, this isn’t Fury’s first visit to the tunnels. He takes one of the corridors to a dog-leg bend and into an alcove with a table and chairs. “Alexander Pierce is protected by a cyborg named Rumlow,” he announces when they’re seated.

“Rumlow? Are we talking about the Cleric who pursued an offender outside the City to the Nethers and was struck by lightning? I thought he died of his injuries.”

That sigh, the one that seems to come from the very bottom of Fury’s lungs…in training, it usually meant that someone was about to be severely disciplined. Here, it’s no less exasperated. “Pierce has made use of a medic named Zola, who delights in modifying humans. Rumlow was an adequate Cleric, but he didn’t have your ability. Didn’t--until Zola implanted him with biomechanicals to boost his speed and stamina. Pierce likes to watch Rumlow beat condemned offenders to death with only his fists.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“I’m glad we’re in agreement. I’ve spent years trying to fill the Clerics’ ranks with those I thought wouldn’t abuse that power…unfortunately, Brock Rumlow was sponsored by Obediah Stane; I was required to confirm him.” Steve has never considered that there might be political considerations to Clerical appointments. Master’s Fury’s admission is a revelation. 

“Does that mean you think we may be able to win over some of the active Clerics?” he asks, because that would make a huge differrence in their chances.

Fury smiles unexpectedly. “More than you know. Over the years, I’ve managed to befriend and sound out those I felt had the capacity to embrace a life unaltered by Prozium. At this point, slightly more than forty percent of the current Clerics are operating without the drug.” Steve’s jaw drops, but Fury is just getting started. “Of the remaining ranks, my analysis of their psych profiles indicates roughly thirty-five percent, properly approached, would be sympathetic to a more tolerant government. _You_ were on that list. There’s some margin of error, but I’m confident that we have at least seventy percent of the Clerics on our side.”

Steve exhales mightily, but Fury shakes his head. “Don’t forget, we still have to execute Pierce and destroy the factories. Both of those things need to happen for this revolution to be successful. I have the plans of Pierce’s apartments and of the adjoining governemnt suites….” He rolls them out on the table and begins pointing out access points. They study the diagrams at length. 

“What are these areas?” Steve finally asks, pointing.

“I gather they’re multi-use. Sometimes, Zola uses them to hold his ‘patients’. Other times, they’re cells for the condemned that Rumlow is going to kill. You look upset, Cleric. Have you forgotten your training so soon?”

Steve schools his face into a mask. Strange, how quickly his once-normal expression has grown to feel artificial. The thought of people being callously murdered for entertainment _is_ upsetting, especially following on the heels of losing his partner earlier in the week. It was that event that had unsettled him and caused the breakage of his daily Prozium dose, leading to this hour, this room….

“Was Banner talking in riddles, about his Council candidates?” he asks, to change the subject. “Citizen Potts is obvious. Banner denied that he was one of them, but he’d make sense.”

“Only to members of the Resistance,” Fury dissents. “Your friend, Citizen Carter, on the other hand--”

_“Peggy?!”_

“Banner’s logic for Potts is that one, she’s recognizable, and two, she’s perceived to know her way around the high seats of power. She hasn’t gotten her hands dirty; the fact that she’s survived when others at that altitude haven’t proves she’s smart.

“Your friend Carter may be ‘only’ a teacher, but that’s a respected profession. She’s got the natural authority; if she can keep control over a roomful of youngsters who aren’t on adult meds yet, she can tame lions.”

Steve smiles shyly. “She’s really something. I owe her my life--she saw I was suffering and whisked me off to sanctuary before I could give myself away in public. I never understood how _intense_ feelings could be, until now.”

“It must have seemed like a good idea, after the War--bad feelings caused so much destruction, make the feelings stop, no more wars, hooray.” Fury’s voice is deep and resonates in the small room. “The trouble with that logic is that it isn’t logical at all. Yes, there are ‘bad’ feelings, like Alexander Pierce’s bloodlust or Rumlow’s delight in bullying. On the other hand, they’ve also subdued the _good_ feelings: love, kindness, joy…without those, humanity is much poorer.”

“It’s all about discipline, isn’t it?” Steve says, half-aloud. Becoming a Cleric had meant intense physical discipline, learning to control his motions, to meet force with no more force than was necessary to stop it. This new life is also going to require discipline of self, not his body this time, but his inner self. It’s an intriguing challenge.

“You’re too young, you don’t remember the War, much less what life was like before that. The conflict was sudden; it literally blew up in a matter of hours, a clash of egos between two world leaders with no regard for their own people or anyone else. There used to be a philosophy that clearly neither of them paid attention to: ‘Do to other people what you would want them to do you.’ Don’t want to get hit with a rock? Don’t throw stones. Or bullets. Or bombs.”

 _But you’re asking me to kill the Father_ , Steve thinks. It’s hardly the first death he’s caused, being a veteran Cleric, but the others were in the line of duty and buffered by Prozium. And yet, there’s a rightness that he, the Father’s enforcer, should enforce this sentence on behalf of the people he’s enslaved. _Yes. I’m doing_ for _my fellow citizens what they can’t do for themselves._

“When do we start?”

“Tomorrow night. Several key people are have been strategically scheduled. They’ll make access to the factories easier, turn a blind eye to our passing. A number of high-ranking citizens will be attending a dinner party at the Starks’, providing alibis for Citizens Potts and Carter, among others. This has been in the planning stages for some time; it was almost called off when our original candidate to take out Pierce was killed. That’s right,” Fury says when Steve looks sharply at him. “Your late partner, Barnes, would have been our assassin.”

For a moment, Steve struggles to discipline himself. They had pursued an offender beyond the City walls, into the surrounding wilderness, where they’d faced a clash of two factions who’d overwhelmed them. James Barnes had lost his left arm; despite Steve’s frantic attempts to stem the bleeding, his partner had died of his injury.

“I wasn’t aware that he was part of your forty percent,” he says when he has control of himself.

“He was the best I’ve ever trained--or have you forgotten who cost me my eye?”

“He regretted it.”

“And came to tell me so; that was when I recruited him. Yes, this whole time, he wasn’t what you thought.”

It’s a shock, but changes nothing. “He was a good partner.”

“And a good man. So are you. That’s why you’re our third candidate for the new council. Don’t get yourself killed.”

Steve blinks. The implied approval from someone he’s respected for most of his life releases a new and unfamiliar feeling, a pleasant one. He hopes it isn’t pride--he’s been warned about that--but it makes him feel stronger, somehow.

Master Fury introduces him to Rhodes, one of the older Clerics. He’s one of Stark’s personal guard, it transpires, and it’s he who’s provided the detailed plans. He also has information for Steve about Pierce’s daily routine as well as Rumlow’s abilities and enhanced fighting style.

“I wouldn’t want to take him on,” the senior Cleric says. “He’s fast, strong…has no conscience--I don’t think he’s human anymore.”

“When he was still an ordinary Cleric that he was cited as terminating suspected offenders without trial.” Fury shakes his head. “It happened regularly.”

“Pierce would probably consider that a plus,” says Rhodes in a tone Steve is learning to recognize as cynical. “There are always more citizens, and he thinks that fear of the same fate will control the rest.”

“He thinks wrong,” Master Fury says firmly. 

Steve takes a deep breath. “So, basically, I have to go through Rumlow to get to Pierce--and Rumlow is at least as fast and as strong as I am?”

“At least.” The other men are in agreement, and Rhodes adds, “Plus there are guards there who aren’t ours. Pierce is paranoid; he’s hand-picked Clerics who suit him, and Zola personally supervises their Prozium doses to ensure they stay tame and loyal. Some of them may be augmented as well, but none as much as Rumlow. He’s very jealous about his status as Father’s defender--a few of the modified Clerics have messily rurned up dead.”

“This Zola--”

“You’re not likely to encounter him,” Rhodes waves off Steve’s concern. “He tends to stay in the lab, and right now, the word is, he’s tinkering with some poor bastard to give Rumlow a little competition. Just in case, here’s a picture of him--nobody’s going to bat an eye if that creep turns up as part of the over-all body count.”

The image Rhodes projects onto the wall shows a round-faced man with an expression on his face that would be wrong, somehow, even without Prozium. There’s a brightness in his eyes that Steve instinctively knows has nothing to do with gaiety, and the smile that curves his thin lips is unrelated to merriment. 

He should be shocked by the tacit permission to terminate the medic, but if it’s true, what he’s perpetrated on Rumlow and others…

It’s all true.

When he begins his infiltration of the Fathers’ Tower, Steve Rogers discovers that his friends have not overstated the case. The outer level guards, thankfully, are Fury’s converts, but as he penetrates to the hallowed precinct of the Father, he’s challenged, and they’re not easily defeated opponants.

By the time he reaches the innermost chanbers, Steve is winded. He enters the chamber where Pierce records his daily propaganda broadcasts. His quarry is seated in a high-backed chair, his familiar face wearing a familiar smile.

The Father!

Even knowing what he knows now, this is one of the men whose laws has governed Steve’s entire life. When that benevolent gaze turns to him, when the Father’s eyes lock with his, for the first time, Steve falters.

Then those familiar, beloved eyes shift infinitesimally past him, and Steve’s reflexes kick in. He dives, tumbling, coming up as Rumlow straightens, a dent in the flooring where Steve had been standing. The older Cleric isn’t the man he used to be. His face is a twisted mess of burn scars, and the fist that impacted the floor is overlaid with metal that seems to be disappearing into the sinew of his wrist. Metal studs are fused to the knuckles of his other hand. 

“If it isn’t Steve Rogers!” the cyborg exclaims with mocking pleasantry. “The pretty boy! The poster boy for good little Clerics everywhere! Better men than you have come here on your fool’s errand, and I killed them, too!”

Oddly, the threat steadies him. This is why he’s here; it isn’t a fool’s errand, it’s a deadly necessity--to secure freedom for an entire population. 

It’s slow going; Rumlow is a formidable opponant and Steve is already fatigued. Apparently, in addition to the visible modifications, his uniform covers strategic reenforcements to his weak points--a direct kick to Rumlow’s left knee almost bounces Steve onto his ass. The cyborg just chuckles.

The chuckle stirs something primal in Steve. He’s spent his life playing by their rules, obeying their laws, being, yes, being “the good little Cleric”. Clearly Rumlow and the upper echelons are flouting all those strictures that they’ve imposed on those below them…and Steve refuses to be treated as an inferior.

Rumlow leaves himself open, stance not the guarded pose it should be, because he’s so sure he’s invulnerable. Possibly he’s armored beneath his tunic, but the first thing to do is prove to the man that he can still feel pain. For that, go with what shows….

Grappling, Steve allows the other man to grab his right wrist. Rumlow is so happy trying to crush his bones that he doesn’t brace himself for Steve’s lunge. There’s a corrugated metal air vent set into the wall, and Steve drives the back of Rumlow’s hand against it and yanks upward.

The metal studs embedded in Rumlow’s knuckles catch in the slats of the vent. Steve ruthlessly slams that hand upward like sliding a piece of cheese against a grater, chunks of metal, flesh and bone are left behind. Rumlow howls and releases Steve’s wrist. He waves his wounded hand, spraying blood everywhere. 

The expression of incredulity on Pierce’s face as blood spatters on his immaculate white tunic gives Steve a feeling of satisfaction. It’s payback, he tells himself. It’s appreciating that look of panic, the same look he’s seen on the faces of so many offenders it was his “duty” to arrest or terminate. Pierce is learning about doing unto others the hard way.

Steve follows up drawing first blood from Rumlow with a kick to the solar plexus that the older man isn’t ready for. The odds are more even now, with Rumlow crouched to protect his mid-section and favoring his wounded hand. Steve’s wrist hurts like hell, but he can still use that hand.

Pierce is screaming into an intercom on the wall, “Send in the other one!” and really, one cyborg is enough, thanks. Steve skips sideways in Pierce’s direction, and the Father jumps back. “He’s not ready!” a squeaky voice from the wall says, and the first rumbling “BOOM!” is heard.

Pierce and Rumlow both start at the sound--extremely loud and incredibly close, unexpected in well-managed Libria where the people are supposed to know their place. Noises sometimes drift in from the Nether, but this is far too near to be that.

“That would be the first of the Prozium factories,” Steve says, feeling downright cheerful, which he knows is ridiculous under the circumstances..

Pierce, who has the most to lose, toggles the intercom again, bellowing, “Just do it!” He’s trapped at the back of the chamber, with two hulking gladiators stalking each other between him and the exits.

Rumlow gets in a punch to Steve’s cheekbone with his good hand. Blood runs down his face. Luckily, he’d seen it coming in time to roll away from it--still, his head is spinning. Another one like that and he’s likely to hit the floor and not get back up. What he wouldn’t give for some back-up, like his partner….

There’s a whisper of motion at the door, and Steve takes a quick step to the left to keep both opponants in sight. His first impression is of a tall, muscular man with broad shoulders and a silver-metallic left arm. Then he looks, really looks at the man.

It’s his “dead” partner, James Barnes.

Scanning the room, he meets Steve’s stunned gaze with a scant flicker of recognition before letting it slide past him to Rumlow, who, as Rhodes had predicted, isn’t taking the addition of another fighter well.

“How could you?!” he roars at the Father. “I’ll kill them both! You’ll see!”

There’s another BOOM, and Pierce looks downright frantic. 

“The factories?” Barnes says in a conversational tone, and Steve remembers he’d been the first choice for this mission..

“That’s the second.”

Barnes smiles. Nods.

They were partners for a long time. Steve might not have been aware of Barnes’s secret life, but they had each others’ backs; he knows how to interpret the little nod that says, “Divide and conquer. You take Pierce, I’ve got Rumlow.”

After that, it’s almost easy. Almost. 

Steve doesn’t hesitate when he gets to his target. Pierce is down with a broken neck before he has a chance to beg, threaten or attempt to bribe his once-faithful Cleric.

With that out of the way, it takes both of them to bring down Rumlow, who by now is completely berserk. Barnes manages to haul Rumlow’s arms back, leaving him wide open for Steve to smash his unarmored, unaugmented trachea.

As the light dies in the old cyborg’s eyes, there’s one final BOOM! as the last Prozium factory meets a fiery fate.

Steve’s about to say something, to welcome his friend back from the dead, when James moves purposefully back through the door he’d entered by. Steve follows him silently; from the plans he’s seen, it’s easy to guess where he’s going: Zola’s laboratory.

The round-faced little man is cowering in a supply closet when they find him. James looks at Steve, a challenge. Steve shrugs and quotes Rhodes. “Nobody’s going to bat an eye if that creep turns up as part of the over-all body count.”

He glances back toward the clinical room where the fiendish medic had saved his partner’s life, somehow, and also twisted it forever. Behind him, there’s a crunch of vertebrae snapping, and the thud of a body hitting the floor.

James Barnes stands beside Steve Rogers for a moment, taking deep breaths, then they begin to make their way out of the Tower. 

“I guess we’ve both got a lot to learn,” Barnes says. “It’s a brave new world.”

“I guess it is,” Steve agrees. No more Prozium, no more Father--life is going to change a lot, very quickly, for everyone.

“So, did they offer you that council seat?”

“They offered--but everyone thought you were dead. I was just the back-up they got at the last minute.”

“You almost pulled it off, single-handed.” Barnes looks down at his prosthetic left hand pensively. “That Rumlow, though…if you hadn’t come…the Father wanted us to fight to the death. He was crazy--Rumlow was--he came into the room where they had me a couple of times to tell me he was going to rip this arm off and beat me to death with it. Pretty sure he was serious.” 

Steve swallows against a wave of nausea. “He won’t hurt anyone ever again.”

“Neither will Zola,” Barnes says, with a self-satisfied grin.

One of the Tower Clerics appears in their path. “In case you haven’t heard,” he tells them, “There have been near-simultaneous explosions at all three Prozium factories. It can only have been an act of the Resistance.”

“It was defi itely an act of the Resistance,” Steve agrees happily. The third Cleric looks startled.

“The question is,” Barnes asks softly, “Are you with us or against us!”

The Cleric blinks at them. He’s not much older than Pietro, and the sight of two battered senior Clerics smiling at him freezes him in his tracks. 

“Um…I’m not against you?”

“Great choice!” Barnes tells him enthusiastically.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Round up every Cleric you can find in the building and gather them in the Rotunda.”

“What are you up to?” James Barnes demands as the young Cleric scampers off.

“I think our colleagues need to hear from us what’s going on. Oh sure, Potts or Carter or someone will be making a speech soon, but _we’re_ Clerics. Whoever is left needs to hear from us about how things are going to be from now on. They’re going to be feeling things they’ve never felt before, most of them, and dealing with citizens who are anxious or acting in ways they aren’t preparted to deal with, because feelings aren’t part of their training. Feelings aren’t illegal anymore--they’re our new reality, and it’s up to us--Clerics--to make sure no one gets hurt.”

James whistles through his teeth. “Stevie, you’re right, and I’m with you. That council seat--you’ll be good at it. I won’t stand in your way.”

Steve shrugs. “Keeping order, that’s what’s important. I’m not worried about the council seat. We can work it out…peacefully.”

…

**Author's Note:**

> That's all, folks. No post-credits scene, no, I'm not continuing it, I have too much other stuff I need to finish. This was just a quickie. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
